You Couldn’t Imagine
- Richard
- Nov, 08, 2016
- Today's Musings
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Simon Peter said, “I’m going fishing.” “We’ll come, too,” they all said. So they went out in the boat, but they caught nothing all night. —John 21:3
It was déjà vu time for the disciples. They had been fishing all night on the Sea of Galilee and hadn’t caught anything. The Lord had risen and had already appeared to some of the disciples. There were no clear marching orders, so they thought they would go back to what they knew how to do: fish. Now it was early in the morning, probably still dark. They saw a figure standing on the shore. “He called out, ‘Fellows, have you caught any fish?'” (John 21:5).
Throughout the Bible, God often asked probing questions when He wanted a confession. In the same way, Jesus was asking His disciples, “Did you catch anything? Have you been successful? Have things gone the way you had hoped they would go? Are you satisfied?”
Why did Jesus want them to admit their failure? So He could bring them to the place where they needed to be. When they cast the net on the right side of the boat as Jesus told them to, their net became so heavy with fish that they couldn’t pull it in. The Lord was teaching the disciples an important lesson: Failure often can be the doorway to real success.
We need to come to that point in our lives as well. We need to come and say, “Lord, I am not satisfied with the way my life is going. I am tired of doing it my way. I want to do it Your way.” If you will come to God like that, He will extend His forgiveness to you. Then He will take your life and transform it in ways you couldn’t imagine.
By Greg Laurie
Just as the lost don't understand the Gospel, the saved rarely understand grace.
There are few activities more exhausting and less rewarding than Christians attempting to please the people around them by maintaining impossible legalistic demands. What a tragic trap, and thousands are caught in it. When will we ever learn?
Grace has set us free!
That message streamed often through the sermons and personal testimonies of the apostle Paul.
The lost need to hear how they can go from the island of debris, filled with misery and guilt, to the land of peace and forgiveness, flowing with mercy and grace. Those bridges are built when we lovingly and patiently communicate the Gospel. You don't have to have a seminary degree. You don't have to know a lot of the religious vocabulary. In your own authentic, honest, and unguarded manner, share with people what Christ has done for you. Who knows? It may not be long before you will know the joy of leading a lost sinner from the darkness of death's dungeon across the bridge to the liberating hope of new life in Christ. Once they've arrived, release them. Release them into the magnificent freedom that grace provides. Don't smother them with a bunch of rules and regulations that put them on probation and keep them in that holding tank until they "get their lives straightened out."; Making us holy is the Spirit's work. Be faithful to dispense the Gospel to the lost and Grace to the saved. Then leave the results in the Lord's hands.